Politics

Dhaka, Sept 14 (UNB) – Amid various controversies, Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) President Rezwanul Haque Chowdhury Shovon and General Secretary Golam Rabbani have been removed from their respective posts.

While briefing reporters after Saturday’s Awami League Central Working Committee (ALCWC) meeting at Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s official residence Ganobhaban, party general secretary Obaidul Quader said they have been asked to step down.

He, however, said the present committee will remain in force and No 1 vice-president Al Nahean Khan Joy and No 1 joint secretary Lekhak Bhattacharjee were given the charge of acting BCL president and acting general secretary respectively.

He also said the national council of the ruling party will be held on December 20-21 next.

Dhaka, Sept 14 (UNB) – Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), the student body of BNP, is getting ready to carry out both the ‘legal and political’ fight to remove the barriers to holding its much-awaited council.

“We’ve taken a decision to go to the court challenging the injunction order. We’ll also continue our political fight to this end,” said JCD council’s appeal committee chief Shamsuzzaman Dudu.

Talking to reporters at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office, Dudu, also a former JCD president, said a fresh decision over holding the council of the BNP’s student body will be made after the court vacates the injunction order.

“Huge enthusiasm was created among the leaders and activists of Chhatra Dal as its council was scheduled to be held today (Saturday). But the court’s injunction made them disappointed.”

Dhaka, Sept 14 (UNB) – Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader on Saturday urged the leaders and activists of their party to get united putting aside all the divisions among them to play an important role in pro-people politics.

“Jatiya Party is a potential party, and it can play an important role in politics in the days to come,” he said while addressing a programme of Jatiya Party’s Dhaka divisional unit at the party chairman’s Banani office.

Quader said their party will remain active in politics to protect people’s interests. “So, all of our party leaders and activists must put in united efforts to strengthen the party. It’s a time to move forward, forgetting all the differences and divisions.”

He said many people had thought Jatiya Party would face a split after the death of its founding chairman HM Ershad, but it did not happen. “We could remove the misunderstanding among us.”

The Jatiya Party chairman hoped that their party will be revitalised through holding its council in November this year.

Party Secretary General Moshiur Rahman Ranga said their party senior leaders worked together to prevent any split in the party and got success.

About the Rangpur-3 by-polls, he said Jatiya Party’s voters are enough to ensure the victory of its candidate. “Despite that, we hope the ruling party will extend their support to our candidate in the seat.”

Dhaka, Sept 13 (UNB) - BNP senior leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain on Friday alleged that the government is creating obstacles to their party’s reorganising process by not allowing it to hold its councils at the grassroots level.

“We’re not allowed to do politics. We’re trying to hold councils at the district and upazila levels to reorganise our party, but we’re not getting permission for it as the government is obstructing the process,” he said.

Mosharraf, a BNP standing committee member, said a Dhaka court issued an injunction on holding the council of their party’s student body Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) which was scheduled to be held on Saturday. “We’re trying to overhaul our party and its associate bodies in a democratic manner, but the government is trying to hamper our democratic practice.”

He came up with the comments while speaking at a sit-in programme in front of the Jatiya Press Club arranged by Swadhinata Forum, demanding BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s release from jail.

On Thursday, a court here issued an ad-interim injunction on holding JCD’s council as its former assistant religious affairs secretary Md Aman Ullah Aman filed a case seeking a permanent injunction on it.

Mosharraf said JCD’s council was obstructed as part of blocking the democratic process in the country.

He said the government has kept Khaleda Zia in jail with an ‘ulterior motive’. “Khaleda Zia is the first female Prime Minister of the country who freed the country from the grasp of autocratic ruler HM Ershad and established parliamentary democracy. She is also the symbol and mother of democracy.”

He said it is Awami League which had introduced one-party Baksal rule by annihilating democracy in 1975 while BNP founder Ziaur Rahman established multiparty democracy. “Awami League had no existence when Ziaur Rahman introduced multiparty democracy.”

The BNP leader said Awami League stayed in power by ‘resorting to vote robbery’ on the night of December 29 as the party does not believe in democracy. “Awami League has kept our leader (Khaleda) in jail to hold such a unilateral election.”

Mosharraf said widespread corruption is now everywhere as the government has no control over the administration and state institutions.

He said the scams like pillow and curtain-related ones would not have taken place had the government had control over the state institutions. “Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader said resorting to corruption in buying pillow and curtain is a parochial activity. With such a remark, he admitted that the government is involved with bigger corruption than this.”

The BNP leader alleged that the ruling party leaders are siphoning off their ‘ill-gotten’ money abroad and making their second homes in different countries out of their fear of losing power.

“The national economy has been in a very bad shape due to plundering and corruption. Many banks have become bankrupt. The government has no enough money in the coffer to run the country. That’s why they’re imposing tax and VAT on people in many mays,” he observed.

Mosharraf also criticised the government’s move to collect toll from vehicles that run on highways though those were constructed with taxpayers’ money. “The national exchequer has got so depleted that the government now needs to collect toll from highway vehicles.”

Houston, Sep 13(AP/UNB) — The three leading Democratic presidential candidates clashed over health care, immigration and President Barack Obama's legacy on Thursday in a fierce debate that pitted an aggressive Joe Biden against liberal rivals Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
"This is America," said Biden, his party's early front-runner, before calling Sanders "a socialist." ''I stand with Barack Obama all eight years, good bad and indifferent."
The top White House hopefuls faced off for the first time alongside seven other candidates who are under increasing pressure to break out of the pack. All assailed Trump without mercy.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker called Trump a racist. Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke called him a white supremacist. And Kamala Harris, a California senator, said Trump's hateful social media messages provided "the ammunition" for recent mass shootings.
"President Trump, you have spent the last two-and-a-half years full time trying to sow hate and vision among us, and that's why we've gotten nothing done," Harris declared.
The Democrats primary contest has been remarkably stable, but the debate comes at a pivotal point in the campaign as more voters move past their summer vacations and begin to pay closer attention to politics.
Polls show that a strong majority of all voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction under the first-term president's leadership. But nine months into their nomination fight, divided Democrats have yet to answer fundamental questions about who or what the party stands for beyond simply opposing Trump.
The debate is shaped by evolving issues of race, gender, generation and ideology that again exploded into public view on the debate stage Thursday night.
Obama himself emerged as a hot point as the discussion shifted to health care and immigration in particular.
Sanders said Biden, Obama's two-term vice president, bears responsibility for millions of Americans going bankrupt under the "Obamacare" health care system.
Biden slapped back at both Sanders and Warren and contended they haven't yet explained how they would pay for Sanders' government-backed "Medicare for All" health care plan.
Castro, who served as Obama's housing chief, kept the pressure on the front-runner.
The 44-year-old Texan appeared to touch on concerns about Biden's age when he accused the former vice president of forgetting a detail about his own health care plan. At 76, Biden would be the oldest president ever elected to a first term.
"Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago?" Castro asked. "I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that you have to buy in and now you're forgetting that."
He added: "I'm fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama and you're not."
The ABC News debate was the first limited to one night after several candidates dropped out and others failed to meet new qualification standards. A handful more candidates qualified for next month's debate, which will again be divided over two nights.
Besides the infighting, viewers saw the diversity of the modern Democratic Party.
The debate, held on the campus of historically black Texas Southern University, includes women, people of color and a gay man, a striking contrast to the Republicans. It unfolded in a rapidly changing state that Democrats hope to eventually bring into their column.
The debate shifted to gun violence in a state shaken by a mass shooting last month that left 22 people dead and two dozen more wounded.
In an emotional moment, O'Rourke said that there weren't enough ambulances at times to take all the wounded to the hospital.
"Hell yes, we're gonna take your AR-15, your AK-47," he said, as the crowd cheered.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar noted that all the candidates on stage favor a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. She favors a voluntary buy-back program on assault weapons, however.
Meanwhile, Trump noted he'd be in Baltimore at a Republican retreat during the debate and wasn't sure he'd get a chance to watch. But he predicted the Democratic nominee would ultimately be Biden, Warren or Sanders.
"It's going to be very interesting," Trump said. "I'm going to have to watch it as a re-run."
The leading Democratic candidates may not have another chance to face off for quite some time.
The Democratic field may be divided into two groups when they meet in October because more than 10 candidates qualified for the next round.